Monthly Archive:May 2013

No greater marketing excitement is watching the progression of an idea become a reality.

As you may know, Fresh Brew has been involved in developing a local Beaminster community website in the Dorset region. Subsequent to some hiccups which have resulted in local businesses feeling the pinch even more so, a team of people have grouped together to see what we can do to raise awareness of what we HAVE, as opposed to focus on what we have lost. As a result, the Beaminster Community Website was born.

Following in the footsteps of numerous other campaigns, the idea behind the website was to serve as an information portal which provided information not only to the local residents of the town, but to all visitors who were looking for places to see, places to eat, things to do, places to stay etc.

As the months have passed, the website has grown even more – with so many new avenues taking shape within the site. With a marketing cap on, we’ve been so excited to see how the website has moved from being non-existent in Google searches…. to appearing on page 4 … to moving up (s.l.o.w.l.y) towards page 2… and then finally, hitting page 1!

Our big challenge now, is to keep the content going – keep it updated – so that the Beaminster listing will move from number 4 on page 1, to number 1.

People underestimate the power of Content. Of a decent content strategy. In this case, as many of us were doing as a sideline to our 9-5 jobs… it was critical for us to have a clear game-plan about how we wanted to tackle this project. We wanted to keep it credible, but we also didn’t want to take something on that would soon, like many other “community” projects, appear outdated, tired and simply incorrect. The answer was to divide up all tasks to those who were already running similar channels of work / information. And it was only in doing that, that we, as a team, have been able to make this work.

The website continues to gather momentum. Our daily unique user number has risen from 9, to 45 on average, and has started to hit the 65 user mark. These are unique (NEW) users – not returning visitors.

For something that was non-existent before November 2012, I’d say that getting the site up and running, contributed to on a regular basis, and being recognised as a reputable source of information – all within 6 months – is not bad going at all.

I drive home to pick up a few things and go through the mental list of things I need to sort out in the hour break I have between meetings.

I am blessed. I live and work in one of the most beautiful parts of England. The rolling green hills and hedges guide my little Terios, adorned with South African memorabilia, to it’s next destination – Larcombes – to have a key cut, The Pharmacy – to pick up a prescription the doc has left there for us, and a quick nosey at what Lynette in the local patisserie has on her lunchtime nibbles counter.

I drive off with a home-made sausage role and a coeur d’amande – it seems perfect for this thunder-showery Friday.

It used to be often that I long for a past life of corporate structure, visionary product plans and extensive review meetings, but these occurrences are being slowly overshadowed by the joys of small-town living, countryside delving, and the thought of a forage for some wild garlic this evening to serve with the salmon.